FASTER than the speed of light.

[Robbo]

Jay, don't ever get in a car with him ......it's the most frightening thing I have ever experienced.
I'd rather get in the ring with the world's greatest cage fighter than get into a car with Glenn again.
At least with the cage-fighter I'm probably just gonna get knocked out but I'll live ... go for the drive with Glenn and there's a good chance you could die, if not from the crash but from sheer fright ..

 

[Jlowe]

I'm probably going to sound really thick here so please correct me on this one

but say if we scaled this down (alot) and when something goes faster than the speed of sound we see it before we hear it wouldn't this apply to thinking that it can be detected mechanically (or however they did it) before the light came afterwards or is this irrelevant for things going at this speed ???

 

[Robbo]

To detect anything mechanically, there has to be some form of interaction between the subject [faster than light neutrino] and the detector looking for it.
Neutrinos are notoriously difficult to detect at the best of times; trillions upon trillions pass through the earth every second and do not interact in any way with any of the particles or subatomic particles that go to make up our planet.
As for the experiment that threw up these results [neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light] ?
There is still no confirmation.
If you were to ask any physicists or astrophysicist, the vast majority will tell you they believe the results were somehow at fault resulting in a whole host of physicists desperately trying to locate the reason for this anomalous result.
As of yet, no fault has been found in the way the equipment was calibrated and used.
This is not to say they are anywhere nearer confirming anything travelling 'faster than light', it just means they haven't found the reason yet.

I kinda hope it is true because it turns the whole raft of particle physics, quantum theory, string theory and so much more on it's head.
They'll have to rewrite the whole book again but in doing so [a big IF] it will force scientists to re-evaluate everything and then armed with this new knowledge, they can assault the Grand Unification of macro science [planets, stars etc] with quantum mechanics [subatomic particles and wave interactions].
Now that would be fun